Some crisp, clear winter night, duck outside and gawk at the sky. It’s not the best season to fire up a telescope, with the triple threat of frost, snow and cold-weather damage to equipment, but binoculars and even the unaided human eyes can deliver beautiful celestial treats.
One of my favorite wintertime deep-space objects is the only nebula that I have seen with the naked eye (well, naked except for gasses), the Great Orion Nebula. It’s a centerpiece of the constellation Orion, a figure of